We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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“My song is a hymn for individualism and against collectivism. I am also for balls and against circles, for corners and against edges, for trees and against the forest. In my performance it is not so much the song that counts but the moral attitude behind it. Whoever votes for me is against being standardized and cemented in by ‘European Banality’.”
Alf Poier, Austrian entrant to the European Song Contest.
(Via Michael Jennings.)
(In the end, Mr Poier got a respectable 94 points. It seems Britain got no points at all. Politically, this is all to the good.)
In London just now there is a big push on to make the place more pedestrian friendly, and less car-dominated. The Congestion Charge is part of this trend. So are the three new footbridges across the Thames, in the form of the Millenium Bridge between the City and Tate Modern, and the two new footbridges they’ve put on either side of the old Hungerford (railway) Bridge to replace the one old puddle-ridden sewer of a footbridge that used to be there.
As a confirmed pedestrian, I consider all these changes to be big steps in the right direction, especially the Congestion Charge. The long term threat is that London may one day stop being a living city, and become a tourist city, like Paris. Paris is pretty. Of course it is. But the trouble with Paris is that increasingly, that’s all that it is.
In London, for the time being, tourism is no threat. London is far too big, busy and ugly for that. Tourism is the seasoning of this great city, not its basic nourishment. And one of the more entertaining sights to be seen in London in recent years has been the tourist related one of seeing one of these things trundling about, these being DUKWs.
DUKWs, or “Ducks” as they have always, inevitably, been called, were originally used for amphibious landings during World War II, and although I’ve never witnessed them actually making the transition, the London ducks are amphibious here too, being both buses and boats at different stages of their travels about London.
While putting this together, I found myself wondering, not for the first time in my life: why DUKW? Well, according to this:
D = First year of production code “D” is for 1942
U = Body style “U” utility truck (amphibious)
K = Front wheel drive. GMC still uses that on trucks today (K5 Chevy Blazer)
W = Two rear driving wheels (tandem axle)
So now you know.
I also learned on my google-travels that London is not the only city where DUKWs are still making themselves useful, and keeping people employed driving them and looking after them. They are to be found all over the place, it seems.
Just watching the cricket between Zimbabwe and England today, I have a couple of further comments to add to what Brian was saying on Thursday.
The background to all this is that Henry Olonga in the recent World Cup wore a black arm band to mourn the death of democracy in Zimbabwe. (Olonga incidentally was in 1995 the first non-white player to play top level cricket for Zimababwe, although there have been many others since) Although he was a member of the Zimbabwe squad for the rest of the World Cup, he was not selected in any further matches in the tournament. Off the record, the team management admitted that they would have liked him to have played, but they were under pressure from the Mugabe government not to select him. The final stages of the tournament were played in South Africa, and it was revealed at the end of the tournament several members of the Zimababwean security forces had travelled to Zimbabwe to “escort” Olonga back to Zimbabwe after the last game so that he could be charged with treason. The South African government should have screamed in outrage at this violation of its sovereignty but didn’t. Apparently good relations with the Mugabe regime are still important there.
Unsurprisingly, Olonga went into hiding and left South Africa, eventually turning up in England. Many of us thought that this was so outrageous that cricketing ties with Zimbabwe should be ended, at least for now. Over the past ten years, Zimbabwe had gone to some effort to build up a good cricket team, but by this point things had reached something of a sad, depressing joke. (Of course, the situation with the game of cricket was unimportant compared to the indignities being suffered by the people of Zimbabwe in general, but it was sadly symptomatic of it).
However, the Zimbabwe team’s present tour of England went on as scheduled. The England Cricket Board (which isn’t in a great financial state) needed the money. The Australian board, which is in a perfectly good financial state, also confirmed a tour for October, so the English board are not alone. The first game between Zimbabwe and England (which goes for five days) is presently being played.
As Brian said, there have been some protests against the game. Brian reported that Channel 4, the advertising funded but technically state owned television network that covers English cricket, used the rain delays in the match to provide some discussion of Mr Mugabe’s vile regime, and to interview Henry Olonga.
However, turning on the match this morning, I discovered it was even better than this. Henry Olonga is actually working for Channel 4 as a commentator. I don’t know if this is just for this match, or he will be doing it for the whole summer. Like Brian, I was very impressed by him. Olonga is very articulate and knowledgeable, and was doing an excellent job. Many television channels would just cover the sport and pretend that any political controversy was not happening. However, Channel 4, while still providing good cricketing coverage, has not done this at all. Not only have they given the state of Zimbabwe some attention, but they have actually given Henry Olonga some work. This is sporting coverage and not news coverage, so they haven’t been overt about it, but in a nicely understated way that doesn’t take anything away from the sporting coverage, they have made a statement. This is deeply classy.
The Ministry of Defence is leaving no stone unturned in its investigations of the allegations against Colonel Tim Collins:
The Ministry of Defence said an inquiry into the death raised issues about the “wider military culture” within the unit which demanded further investigation.
Say it isn’t so!! A ‘military culture’ in the British Army? Has the world gone stark raving mad? ‘Military culture’ has no place in our armed forces and it must be rooted out forthwith.
The Royal Mail is to sell off the Post Office Underground Railway, better known as Mail Rail. For the uninitiated, this is basically the Crossrail project (the East-West rail link across London that is as eagerly anticipated by commuters as it is delayed by politicians and dreaded by taxpayers). The only differences: it exists in reality, not just as a gleam in John Prescott’s eye, and it only carries sacks of mail. Millions of them per day. Like Crossrail, however, it is too expensive – the Post Office says it is simply not economic to run any more.
The Times [to which Samizdata does not link], asks in today’s Leader for ideas on what use may be put to such a railway, bearing in mind it is only tall enough to carry passengers if they lie down like guests in a Japanese capsule hotel. Surely the collective ingenuity of Samizdata can come up with some good ideas?
Here’s two to start the ball rolling:
- Cross-London packet sevice. Surely it could continue in its present role if anyone – private individual, corporation, courier or freight company – could use it. Modern barcode technology could make it easy to identify the right packet to serve up at the receiving station. Mail Rail is infrastructure; if the Post Office opened their pipes to competing “content”, like telcos and ISPs do, then perhaps the infrastructure would be viable, and even extended?
- The real Crossrail. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to widen a tunnel that already exists than to build a new one? Everyone knows that Crossrail is desperately needed if London is not to sieze up – and risk losing companies migrating elsewhere to restore the balance. Everyone also knows that the £4bn estimate is likely to be spent several times over before the system goes into service – these projects always overrun. Isn’t this a good opportunity to cut costs?
The usual prize (kudos, not cash) for the most innovative suggestion.
Britain has no future outside of the European Union. That’s what the federasts keep telling us. That is the specious lie they’ve been peddling for years now. I can only assume that these people manage to sleep at night by consuming a quantity of sedatives fit to bring down a horse.
We have touched upon this issue before, but it is so significant that it bears practically no end of reiteration. Put simply, the EU is dying:
2050, the working population of the USA will have increased by more than the entire present working population of Germany.
EU 15, in contrast, will have lost almost as much working population by 2050 as the entire present working population of Germany.
Remaining EU 15 nations are projected to suffer losses in working population ranging from the manageable (France, minus 8%) to the catastrophic (Spain, minus 35%, Italy, minus 41%).
Tell me, what future is there in marrying a corpse?
[My thanks to Emmanuel Goldstein for the link.]
Sometimes the views of Britain one reads in the American press suggest to me that the authors must have visited Britain in some parallel universe rather than the one I live in.
Every now and again however, I read an article that suggests not just that there are indeed commentators in the USA who understand Britain just fine, but that some of them understand the truth about Britain a great deal better than many British journalists and the majority of Britain’s dismal political class.
The sad truth is that British journalists who are not sounding shrill and alarmed clearly have not grasped the magnitude of what is about to happen to the British people’s remaining ability to live under accountable governance and accessible law. As a result, the only voices in Britain which seem to be aware of the rapidly approaching blackhole that the United States of Europe represents are the perpetually shrill and alarmist tabloid newspapers like the resolutely low-brow Sun newspaper.
Thus it is this tabloid rag that Washington Times journalist Paul Craig Roberts quotes extensively:
Next month, Mr. Blair intends to give his approval to a new European Union constitution, which would create a United States of Europe and turn Parliament into the equivalent of a local council.
Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of the Sun, Britain’s largest newspaper, says Mr. Blair’s decision signs away 1,000 years of British sovereignty and hands “control of our economic, defense, foreign and immigration policies to Brussels. The EU will also gain authority over our justice, transport, health and commerce systems and dictate the strength of union power.”
Mr. Blair has ruled out a referendum or vote on his decision to terminate the existence of Britain as a country. He says the issue is too complicated for voters to understand.
Think about that for a moment. Do you think it is too difficult for people to understand the difference between being an independent country and a province in a European empire? Do you think voters can’t understand the difference between electing a government that is accountable to them and being ruled from afar?
[…]
Britain’s unique legal system, with its habeas corpus and double jeopardy protections, would cease to exist. Native Britons could be imprisoned for voicing opposition to their cities being overrun by Third World immigrants. But Mr. Blair thinks these changes are too difficult for British voters to evaluate.
[…]
Britons can be arrested for self-defense. Imagine having to decide whether to submit to rape, robbery or assault or face arrest for responding with excessive force. Force capable of driving off an attacker is likely to be “excessive,” especially if accomplished with use of a weapon.
[…]
Habeas corpus and protection against double jeopardy mean little when criminal sanctions apply to self-defense and to children playing with toy guns. It might be that, practically speaking, the British have already lost the protection of their law. In choosing Mr. Blair, perhaps the British people showed an indifference to continued national sovereignty.
Read the whole article. I am indifferent to the fading vaingloriousness of states. However I am far from indifferent to a process that will lock in the ever increasing growth of state by making its power centres even more remote than they already are, thereby making them immune to even the weak checks and balances of locally sourced law and democracy.
Many have fought the advent of the European super-state in Britain, but it has just been one issue amongst many. Only now and oh so very belatedly have a few newspapers and media commentators picked up the horn and sounded it. Suddenly it is dawning on them that the battle has now reached the very last ditch almost unnoticed, whilst the mass of people sleepwalk towards the end of a thousand years of evolving political culture. Lose this one and there will be no more political means left for opposition. No doubt the perpetual growth of mass surveillance and the impending introduction of ID cards at this time is just a coincidence. Sure.
Welcome to a dying nation.
Nice ‘fisking’ of Chirac’s preparations of G8 summit agenda by Collins on Pave France based on yesterday’s article in the Telegraph titled Chirac to embarrass Bush at G8 conference:
He said Evian’s main goal would be “to build the institutions and rules of a global democracy, open and interconnected”
Translation: I’m going to feed Bush a steady line of Communist bullshit until he gets fed up and leaves. Once he is gone, I will take cheapshots at the U.S., and then deny them when later confronted.
It isn’t often that one finds a damning indictment of state regulation in the pages of the Guardian, so I cannot possibly let this opportunity slip by unblogged.
The background to this comes courtesy of one of these ‘food safety scandals’ that periodically burst into the media spotlight and engender all manner of ‘shock, horror’ headlines before slipping quietly down the memory hole into oblivion. This time, the scandal involves chicken. Or, more accurately, a simulacrum of chicken because it appears that the British market is being flooded with cheap chicken products that have been pumped with water to artificially inflate them and stuffed full of hydrogenated beef proteins.
And the distributors are getting away with it, despite the existance of a plethora of complex food safety and labelling regulations and whole slew of portentious-sounding Euro-agencies to enforce them. The Guardian’s Felicity Lawrence is beside herself:
The food standards agency, which we might expect to be our champions in the matter of food quality, seems to think this is all right so long as someone mentions it on a label at some point. Except, of course, since they communicate in Euro-regulation speak, what the white rabbit actually says as he puts on his spectacles is: “This is a labelling issue and a composition issue. It is not a public safety issue.”
So it turns out that all these bureaucrats are good for is issuing sanctimonious press releases and little else. I believe that Ms.Lawrence has (quite accidentally of course) stumbled upon the principle of moral hazard. She, like many others, has hitherto placed her faith in regulations and state enforcers to ensure the quality and safety she requires, only to find that she is left dangling when the crunch comes.
But her tale of woe does have a happy ending. Almost certainly through frustration rather than dazzling insight, Ms.Lawrence comes to exactly the right conclusion:
We must wake up to the reality and to the fact that no one but ourselves will sort it out. Don’t buy cheap chicken.
Bingo! Hopefully Ms.Lawrence has now come to appreciate the perils of assigning over personal responsibility to agents of the state and then hoping and praying that they do the right thing by you. They rarely have and they rarely will.
Regulatory regimes are not just a waste of time and effort, they are actually damaging. They suck a huge amount of otherwise-productive wealth out of society that ends up translated into nothing except sinecure jobs and state pensions.
In any event, the only traders who bother to comply with all these regulations are the ones who are worried about their reputation and, ironically, it is those traders who can be relied upon to provide us with good quality products without the monkey of the state on their backs. They want to make money and stay in business and they don’t achieve those aims by poisoning their customers or brushing them off with inferior, shoddy goods.
So let’s take all these regulations and put them on a bonfire. Yes, there will still be rogues and con-men but, as this story has clearly illustrated, enacting more laws doesn’t stop them anyway. The combination of profit-motive on the supply side and a bit of personal responsibility on the part of the consumer is a better recipe for safety and quality than any number of faceless pen-pushers wielding absurd and counter-productive diktats.
Has Al-Qaeda hired the Monty Python team as political advisers? I only ask because of this surreal outburst:
O Muslims, take matters firmly against the embassies of America, England, Australia, and Norway and their interests, companies, and employees.
Let’s get this straight; they’re invoking Muslims to attack America (natch), England (obviously), Australia (not unexpected) and… Norway?!?!?!?!?!?
A referendum on joining the Euro will cause “all-out internal civil war”
– Dennis McShane, Minister for Europe
I never referred to… [civil war] in the Labour Party. Calling for a referendum… would launch a long civil war in the UK with everyone fighting everyone.
– Dennis McShane, Minister for Europe, subsequent clarification.
[Source: BBC News at Ten, BBC online]
Oh well, that’s all right then.
We in England have been neglecting Zimbabwe. There have been very few postings on the subject here lately, just this from me since the Iraq war, unless I missed something in my backtracking.
That is now changing. Today is day one of the test match cricket series between England and Zimbabwe. The first test is a Lords, the St Peter’s Rome of cricket, and frankly the cricket has been fairly dreary. In a rain interrupted first session England, in the persons of Trescothick and Vaughan, managed 28 without loss. While I wrote what follows, England got to about 100 for the loss of Vaughan. (I could explain, but if you don’t know what that means, you almost certainly don’t care.)
But of course the real story is off the pitch, and frankly this aspect of the situation is proving a whole lot more satisfactory and less embarrassing than I for one had dared to hope.
Take the TV coverage so far, on Channel 4 TV. There has been some play, so that has focussed some attention on the situation. But the rain interruptions mean that Channel 4 have been wheeling out all their if-it-rains plans, and one of them concerns the matter of the, er, regime in Zimbabwe, and any demonstrations against and reactions to that regime.
There have already been demonstrations, both inside (one gutsy demonstrator made her point and got herself shepherded out) and outside the ground. And more to the point, much more to the point, Channel 4 have pointed their cameras at some of this.
If you know anything about TV sports coverage, you’ll know that it can be very misleading when a real world news item erupts in its midst. The tiresome habit of certain English exhibitionists invading sports events in the nude was inflamed by the promise of TV coverage, and is now being suppressed by TV coverage of these idiots also being suppressed. When British soccer fans behave really, really badly, they don’t always make it to the TV shows either. What actually happens between rival fans at Celtic v Rangers soccer matches in Glasgow, for example, is nobody’s business, and certainly never gets to be the business of TV viewers in anything like its full lack of glory. All of which means that the Channel 4 recognition of the “regime problem” is very significant. An enthusiastic pro-Mugabe-ite watching the TV coverage here today would not be a happy bunny.
Pitch invader, demos outside the ground, mainstream news coverage of demos outside the ground, above all the prospect of this relentless drizzle of media focus going on and on throughout the tour, destroying all attempts to suggest that things out there are in any way normal – it’s looking a lot worse than such a person would have been hoping for.
It may even be that the tour going ahead, but surrounded by the ever louder claim that it shouldn’t have, is the worst possible media outcome for the “regime”. I surely hope so.
Above all, there is Henry Olonga. → Continue reading: Cricket is drawing English attention back to Zimbabwe
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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